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Chapter 101: Dian Cecht
"Fool!"
Miach's voice suddenly spiked, his tone and gaze turning as sharp as a drawn blade. "How could you be so foolish? To hurt the feelings of our friends for such a trivial amount of money? They helped us out of respect for me, and even more so out of the bond they share with you. Is that kind of camaraderie something you can measure in Valis? They can help you once, maybe twice, but do you expect them to carry our burdens forever?"
He took a step forward, looking down at his Familia Captain, who was a head shorter than him. Every word seemed to be squeezed through his clenched teeth. "It is utterly absurd."
That harsh reprimand acted like a needle, instantly bursting the fragile bubble of composure Naaza had tried so desperately to maintain.
She snapped her head up. The flames of profound indignation ignited within her brown eyes, and she bit her lower lip so hard that her jaw visibly trembled.
It took several long seconds before she could muster the strength to force her rebuttal through a tight throat.
"Lord Miach, all you ever do is speak pretty words."
Her voice carried an irrepressible tremor, thick with years of accumulated grievances. "You are exactly the same! You smile at anyone and everyone, handing out high-grade elixirs for free regardless of who they are. Do you have any idea how much those potions cost to make?"
Her emotions broke like a collapsing dam. Now that she had found a release, there was no holding back the floodwaters.
"And you don't even realize it yourself! Do you know how many people you've deceived with those pretty words of yours? Words that sound just like sweet nothings to a girl's ears? Do you know how many unnecessary misunderstandings you've caused? Do you know... do you have any idea how many of your messes I have had to clean up!?"
"Wh-What nonsense are you spouting!?"
Caught completely off guard by Naaza's unexpectedly fierce accusations, Miach's handsome face twisted into an expression of flustered shock for the first time. "What do you mean, deceived? Don't say things that cause such terrible misunderstandings!"
The sudden, explosive argument left Robin, Hyacine, and Tifa staring in stunned silence.
As they listened, the gaze they leveled at the God of Healing collectively cooled by several degrees.
We need to keep Aiden away from Miach, the three girls thought in unison, a shared vigilance blooming in their minds. We can't let him be corrupted by this kind of behavior.
Aiden, however, chuckled inwardly. He was far too familiar with Miach's character archetype. The man was basically a walking, talking romantic hazard—a saintly fool who unknowingly charmed everyone in a ten-mile radius while remaining completely oblivious to the chaos he left in his wake.
Naaza's accusations continued, her voice trembling even more violently as the rims of her eyes flushed a painful red.
"I feel terrible about what I did to Aiden and the others. I know I was shameless, scheming against my own friends just to cut costs..."
Her voice dropped, heavy with suffocating self-loathing. "But... but if this continues, not only will we never be able to pay off the debt we owe, but it will only keep growing and growing until—"
"Eh?"
"Debt?"
Before she could finish her sentence, Naaza slapped a hand over her own mouth, her face paling with sudden panic and profound regret.
But it was too late. The word "debt" had echoed clearly, landing precisely in the ears of everyone present.
Robin, Tifa, and Hyacine widened their eyes, their surprised gazes darting back and forth between Miach and Naaza.
They had known that the Miach Familia was struggling financially due to their patron deity's relentless charity, leaving the Azure Pharmacy constantly operating at a loss. But they had never imagined the situation had deteriorated to the point of crippling debt.
Aiden's gaze, however, discretely drifted toward Naaza's right arm.
It was a prosthetic.
A silver arm constructed from incredibly precise metallic components, seamlessly connecting to her body at the shoulder joint.
A profound understanding settled in Aiden's mind.
For an artificial limb of such top-tier craftsmanship and exceedingly rare materials, the price the Miach Familia had to pay was far more devastating than simply bordering on bankruptcy.
A suffocating, agonizing silence descended upon the entire pharmacy.
Miach's expression contorted into the pinnacle of awkwardness. He opened his mouth, but not a single word came out. He could only avert his gaze, a deeply unnatural flush creeping across his handsome features.
Naaza lowered her head in pure mortification, looking as if she desperately wished the floorboards would swallow her whole.
In a moment of overwhelming emotional stress, she had completely exposed the most embarrassing, closely guarded secret of her Familia to outsiders.
Just as the silence threatened to solidify into something unbreakable, a deafening, arrogant roar of laughter violently tore through the stifling atmosphere.
"Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I'm coming in to bother you—!"
Accompanied by a voice that directly assaulted the eardrums with undisguised malice, the weather-beaten door of the pharmacy was viciously kicked open.
Bang! The heavy wooden door slammed against the interior wall with a colossal crash, sending years of accumulated dust cascading from the ceiling.
Every eye in the room was instantly drawn to the backlit silhouette standing in the doorway.
"I'm here to collect this month's debt payment, Mi—ach~"
The drawn-out, mockingly theatrical drawl announced the arrival of a tall, imposing figure casually strolling into the shop.
The intruder was a male god who appeared to be just entering middle age, with hair and a neatly trimmed beard dyed in streaks of distinguished gray.
He possessed a naturally handsome face that carried the distinguished marks of time, but the malicious, crooked smirk and the utterly arrogant, disdainful look in his eyes completely ruined whatever natural charm he might have had.
He was draped in an outrageously luxurious robe, intricately embroidered with woven threads of real gold and silver. The sheer opulence of his attire gave the bizarre impression that he had taken Miach's simple, impoverished white tunic and inverted it, piling mountains of wealth upon the fabric purely out of spite.
"Dian..." Miach's voice was hoarse, the name catching in his throat.
"I waited for half the day without seeing a shadow of you, so I had no choice but to make the trip myself."
Dian Cecht spread his arms wide, looking around as if graciously embracing a conquered territory. He swept his condescending gaze over everyone in the room. "You all ought to thank me, you poor wretches."
He waved a hand in front of his nose in sheer disgust, his brow furrowing deeply. "This shop is exactly the same as always. It's so damn dusty, just standing here is going to make me sick. I'll keep this brief. Besides, there are far more poor people loitering around here today than usual."
His deeply insulting gaze swept unceremoniously across the faces of Aiden, Robin, Tifa, and Hyacine.
"How awful. Calling us poor people..." Hyacine muttered softly under her breath, puffing her cheeks.
Caught in the crossfire of this indiscriminate area-of-effect insult, the four members of the Focalors Familia exchanged glances, clear displeasure written across their faces.
Naaza's eyes were currently vicious enough to murder; she stared at the intruder as if looking at a mortal enemy she wished to tear limb from limb.
Miach, meanwhile, wore a deeply humiliated expression, his fists clenched tightly at his sides as he swallowed his bitter pride.
"That is the God Dian Cecht," Hyacine explained to her companions, keeping her voice low. "He leads the largest healing and pharmaceutical Familia in all of Orario. For Lord Miach, who also sells elixirs... I suppose he would be considered his absolute worst business rival."
As a healer herself, Hyacine was intimately familiar with the intelligence surrounding the city's major medical factions.
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